Massive China ePassport project underway

11 November 2009

 

Infineon says it has started delivering its security microcontrollers for the massive Chinese ePassport project – one of the biggest ePassport projects in the world.

From the first quarter of 2010, all new Chinese passports will be issued as ePassports.

The Chinese government estimates that about 6.5 million ePassports will be issued to citizens, diplomats and government workers in the first full year of the rollout. There are currently more than 30 million passports in circulation in the country, which have a usual validity of 10 years.

Two government ministries are involved in issuing ePassports: the Ministry of Public Security is responsible for documents for citizens, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handles those for diplomats and government workers.

According to Infineon, all Chinese ePassports include a security microcontroller in the back cover that securely stores the same information about the bearer’s identity as printed on the physical document, such as the holder’s name, date of birth and photo and the passport’s validity and number.

Infineon’s SLE 66CLX800PE security chip is being used, which is designed for ePassports, ID cards, eGovernment cards and other high-security applications. It features a crypto-coprocessor and provides execution speeds of up to 848 kbits/s, even if elevated encryption and decryption operations have to be calculated. It has 80 KB of EEPROM, 240 KB of ROM and 6 KB of RAM.

The SLE 66CLX800PE is certified according to the Common Criteria EAL 5+ high (BSI-PP-0002 protection profile) security standard.

Infineon is also the sole chip supplier for the Chinese Special Administration Regions of Hong Kong and Macao.

The company reports that since 2007 Hong Kong, with its approximately nine million inhabitants, has issued about 1.2 million ePassports each year.  And since the start of 2008 Macao, with its population of about 300,000, has issued around 100,000 ePassports annually. In addition, since 2004 Infineon has exclusively supplied the security microcontrollers for the national eID cards that Hong Kong and Macao issue to citizens and permanent and non-permanent residents. These ID cards enable identification and other services such as automatic border control and eGovernment.